Peeblesshire

The First Green County in Scotland?

Why is it desirable to go 'green'?

The energy demand within the European Union is met from five sources of power (oil 41%, natural gas 22%, coal 16%, nuclear 15% and renewables 6%).   Of the oil 75%  is imported and 38% of the natural gas. The world's supply of petroleum and natural gas are running out.  In addition there is increasing evidence that burning fossil fuel, which produces carbon dioxide, is causing the earth to become warmer due to the so called greenhouse effect.   Consequently developing an economy, which can be sustained using local, non fossil fuel resources, makes sense both locally and globally. The policy of the Government of Scotland is to produce 20% of all Scotlands's energy and 50% of  its electricity by 2020 without building any more nuclear power stations.

Why Peeblesshire?

The towns in Peeblesshire were  developed partly because of  the energy provided by the Tweed and other rivers (such as the Cuddy pictured above) to power the woollen mills and other industrial developments. This energy is still available, but no longer used. Peeblesshire, otherwise known as Tweeddale, is a lightly populated county which has access to wind and biofuel from forestry as well as water power. It is therefore the ideal county to become the first green county in Scotland. Several towns have indicated that they wish to become green towns but it is unlikely that a town would ever be able to produce enough green energy to meet the needs of the population. On the other hand a county may be able to achieve this.

The aim of this website is to quantify current production and useage of energy in Peebleshire and to see what changes would be needed both in energy use and production for this status to be achieved.

•       Many of them lived in cold houses
•       Did not have electricity or running  water
•       Didn't travel more than 50 miles from home.

• The present population  of Peeblesshire probably each consume much more  energy (80 to 150 kWh a day per person - click here for more detailed information on individual consumption). The total daily consumption in the county, which has a population of  18,000 people, is estimated to be over  2,200,000 kWh per day.  It is this his high level of consumption, which is over 120kWh per person per day, which enables us to have a high standard of living.
  
• Most of this energy is derived from fossil fuels (Almost 90% see histogram)
• Converting these fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
• Most other ways of generating energy less efficient or less convenient than generating it from fossil fuel.

• Existing forestry by products from 20,000 hectares of timber in Tweeddale probably yields yields 50,000 dry tonnes of wood. This, if burnt, would produce about  600,000 kWh a day.  This would provide approximately  500,000 KWh a day  if used (for example) in  homes to power a Stirling engines, enough for about 4000 people. Note that the Lockerbie Biomass plant, opened in March 2008, has an installed capacity of 44 MW, and could produce 1,056,000 kWh a day.
  
• The present wind  farms provide enough energy for 2000 people (Assuming 10 MWh per turbine per day).
  
• If we assume that the present population of Peeblesshire is 18,000  leaves 12,000 people without a source of power.
• Other green energy sources  such as tidal power and wave power have been left out because they are not available within the county. Nuclear power has also been omitted because it is not truely renwable, each Nuclear power station uses 200 tonnes of uranium oxide a year. However Torness produces 12TWh of power each year enough for the energy needs of 320,000 people. Therefore Scotland would need 15 nuclear stations to meet its current energy needs. (Five to supply its electrical enegy requirements).
  

• It might be possible to extract enough energy from the  Tweed  for 2000 people, without destroying the environment (Click here to see how this figure was calculated). This figure, which is based on the gradient of the Tweed in Peeblesshire and the water flow, may be a considerable overestimate.  When the mills in Peeblesshire ran on water power  (60% on the power in the mills was provided by water as late as 1861), a mean power supply of 18 horse power per mill is given by Gulvin 1973*- quoting parliamentary papers.  This is equivalent to 14kW or  336 kWh a day. If there were 10 mills in Peeblesshire, they would produce 3360 kWh a day, enough energy for 28 people at current levels of consumption. Another source, the Peeblesshire Advertiser in 1857 refers to the Tweedside mill in Peebles as having a water wheel with 100hp (75Kw output), this waterwheel on its own would produce  enough power for 15 people. The amount of energy available in the tributaries of the Tweed is much smaller than that available from the Tweed.
  
• Constructing another 10, 3MW wind turbines would produce enough energy for 2500  people (assuming 30 MWh a turbine a day)
  
• Replacing some of the sheep grazing land with biomass ( native trees grown on an eight year coppice cycle) on the hills could probably provide energy for 5,000 more people ).
• This would still leave  3,500 people without power.
• The deficit could possibly be made up by microgeneration; personal 1.5 kW wind turbines, solar water heating, photovoltaic cells on house roofs and combined heat and electricity generators using biofuel.
  
• Or by reducing the energy consumption per person in Peeblesshire to 95kWh a day  (by more heat conservation and power generation in the home and fewer car and air journeys) would enable energy to be provided for the entire population of the county. (click here for ways to save energy) and here for a spreadsheet to work out you current energy consumption.
  

• Reducing individual consumption by about a quarter. More environmentally friendly houses would help.
  
• Constructing 10 more wind turbines.
• Using the existing forestry by- product biomass to produce energy.
• By using some of the sheep grazings to produce biofuel by coppicing timber.
  
• By extracting some energy from the Tweed.
• It would be possible, In a lightly populated county such a Tweeddale to provide all the energy required from renewables (but not necessarily in the form required, such as fuel for transport). Fuel for transport could be provided by using the green power to reduce boron oxide to boron. The boron can then be mixed with water to produce hydrogen. 18 kg on boron and 45 litres of water will produce 5kg of hydrogen which has the same energy content as a 40 litre tank of petrol (New Scientist 29 July 2006 p 35)
  
• This study shows just how dependent we have become on fossil fuels and the amount of planning and investment that will have to be made before we can wean ourselves off these products. We will need the fossil energy to built the new infrastructure required, let's hope we leave our grandchildren a manageable legacy.
• If all else fails our grand children may have to resort to drastic solutions to avoid climate change!